Tapping into Silicon Valley beer

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MERCURY NEWS PHOTO BY MERI SIMON 2/11/2003 The interior of BJ's Restaurant Brewery, on the site of the old Peppermill in Cupertino. It's 10,000 square soaring feet, with brew tanks making it's own beer and root beer. DIGITAL IMAGE

MERCURY NEWS PHOTO BY MERI SIMON 2/11/2003 BJ's Restaurant Brewery, on the site of the old Peppermill in Cupertino. It's 10,000 square soaring feet, with brew tanks making it's own beer and root beer. DIGITAL IMAGE

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MERCURY NEWS PHOTO BY MERI SIMON 2/11/2003 The beer and rootbeer tanks at BJ's Restaurant Brewery, on the site of the old Peppermill in Cupertino. It's 10,000 square soaring feet, with brew tanks making it's own beer and root beer. DIGITAL IMAGE

Since I began writing this monthly column last summer, I’ve spent a fair amount of time traveling around the South Bay, meeting people, sharing a glass of beer now and again. So one day I tossed out what I thought was an innocent question: “Where are the best beer pubs around San Jose?

Dead silence ensued.

“There are no good beer pubs around here,” one guy said flatly.

I couldn’t believe it. In world-famous, sophisticated Silicon Valley, there had to be great pubs. So last month, I posed the question to readers. My criteria: a warm and friendly place with a diverseand frequently changing beer list.

My question unleashed a torrent of passionate responses. I got some suggestions, but most came with a caveat. My favorite was from Diane Crawford and Michael Luna of Belmont.

“You’ve asked the question we’ve been trying to answer for four years (the beginning of our love affair with craft beer). We don’t have much hope,” they wrote.

And they made a promise: “If we win the lottery, first thing we’re going to do is get the best beer bar in Northern California up and running.”

I believe they’ll have a winner.

Nevertheless, I did collect a passel of suggestions. So I set out on my Great Silicon Valley Beer Pub Quest, and I found four winners.

I also discovered a number of pubs that are warm and friendly but fell short in the “large, diverse beer selection” department. I’ll talk about them next month.

The winners are:

• Rose & Crown, 547 Emerson St., Palo Alto, (650) 327-7673. This one has a rough-and-ready – some would call it shabby – interior. Sit down at the L-shaped bar and people start talking to you. Hesitate about what to order and everyone will chip in with suggestions. But it’s also the kind of place where you can retreat into a corner and no one will bother you. An outside patio is usually filled on warm nights.

Since buying the pub in 2006, proprietor Kasim Syed has added taps and begun a regular rotation of mostly West Coast craft beers and Belgian beer.

There’s a wide selection: Duvel, served in its special glass; Full Sail Slip Knot; El Toro (Morgan Hill) Oatmeal Stout; a full range of Fuller’s, the English brewer; Hop Rod Rye and Racer 5 from Bear Republic (Healdsburg). Three-dollar special nights bring in Stanford students, but other times, it’s filled with regulars.

• Mission Pizza & Pub, 1572 Washington Blvd., Fremont, (510) 651-6858. Located near Interstate 680 on the southern edge of Fremont, this is a family pizza parlor with live music Friday and Saturday nights. But proprietor Phillip Willis is into craft beer, the harder-to-find, the better.

When I visited he had Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale on tap. He also had Anderson Valley’s barleywine; Old Rasputin, the luscious imperial stout from North Coast (Fort Bragg); Green Flash Imperial IPA from San Diego County; and his bestseller, Trumer Pils from Berkeley, served in the proper glass.

Willis credits his interest in beer to publican legend Judy Ashworth, whose Lyons Brewery Station in Sunol was the first craft beer pub in America. After that pub burned, Ashworth reopened in Dublin in 1986 with an innovative cold room built directly behind the taps. Willis says he copied the system in his present pizza pub.

• El Toro Brewing Co., 17605 Monterey Road, Morgan Hill, (408) 782-2739.Geno Acevedo and his wife, Cindy, opened their craft brewery in 1994; they opened this large, two-story restaurant and auxiliary brewery a couple of miles away in 2006. This is far from an ordinary brew pub. Acevedo has 24 beers on tap, all beer he has brewed. He rotates the taps constantly and is he ever prolific.

On a recent visit, I sampled a double India Pale Ale, a stout, a Bavarian lager and his version of a sour, Belgian faro. Then we did a vertical tasting of the 2002, 2004 and 2005 versions of Yo!, his holiday beer. They ranged from fair to excellent.

The South Bay is blessed with some excellent brew pubs, but none has as wide a range as El Toro, which is why I include it on my good pub list. (The others are all on my great brew pubs list.)

• BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, 10690 N. De Anza Blvd., Cupertino. Some beer lovers scoffed when I mentioned BJ’s, which is part of a growing chain. But I’m glad I visited.

BJ’s is a sleek, shiny match for the surrounding Apple Computer complex. Inside, BJ’s is corporate-fancy and seems a far cry from a neighborhood beer pub. But it’s friendly and relaxed, and the people at the bar acted like regulars. I had a conversation going in two minutes.

When I visited, there were seven beers on tap, including BJ’s Kolsch-style ale, which won gold at the Great American Beer Festival last year. All are brewed at the BJ’s in Roseville.

But the main attraction is the impressive list of bottled beer. It’s heavy on Belgians, with Boon Gueze; all three Chimay Trappist ales; Orval and Westmalle Tripel, both Belgian Trappist beers; plus Duvel, La Chouffe and the American Belgian-style beers Ommegang and Three Philosophers. And that’s just the top of the list.

• One pub that may be worthy of this list is 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall Restaurant & Pub, 110 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz. They do have 99 kinds of beer. But I haven’t visited. Stay tuned.

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